[273] Codex, i, 3, 54 (56).  Gregory of Tours informs us that according to the Council of Nicaea—­325 A.D.—­a wife who left her husband, to whom she was happily married, to enter a nunnery incurred excommunication.  He means probably:  if she went without her husband’s consent.  Greg. 9, 33:  Tunc ego accedens ad monasterium canonum Nicaenorum decreta relegi, in quibus continetur:  quia si quae reliquerit virum et thorum, in quo bene vexit, spreverit, dicens quia non sit ei portio in illa caelestis regni gloria qui fuerit coniugio copulatus, anathema sit. (Note of editor:  Videtur esse canon 14 concilii Grangensis, quod concilium veteres Nicaeno subiungere solebant; idque indicat titulus in veteribus scriptis.)

[274] Codex, i, 3, 54 (56).

[275] Codex, v, 4, 20, and 5, 18.

[276] Codex, i, 9, 6.

[277] Novellae, cix, 1.

[278] Codex, v, 4, 23 and 28.

[279] Codex, vi, 58, 14.

[280] Codex, i, 5, 19.

[281] Codex, v, 35, 2 and 3.

[282] Codex, ii, 55, 6.

[283] Codex, ix, 8, 5.

[284] This law was evidently lasting, for it is quoted with approval by Pope Innocent III, in the year 1199—­see Friedberg, Corpus Iuris Canonici, vol. ii, p. 782.

[285] Codex, ix, 49, 10.

[286] Codex, v, 16, 24.

[287] For all these enactments see Codex, i, 3, 53 (54), and ix, 13.

CHAPTER IV

WOMEN AMONG THE GERMANIC PEOPLES

A second world force had now come into its own.  The new power was the Germanic peoples, those wandering tribes who, after shattering the Roman Empire, were destined to form the modern nations of Europe and to find in Christianity the religion most admirably adapted to fill their spiritual needs and shape their ideals.  In the year 476 the barbarian Odoacer ascended the throne of the Caesars.  He still pretended to govern by virtue of the authority delegated to him by Zeno, emperor at Constantinople; but the rupture between East and West was becoming final and after the reign of Justinian (527-565) it was practically complete.  Henceforth the eastern empire had little or nothing to do with western Europe and subsisted as an independent monarchy until Constantinople was taken by the Turks in 1453.  I shall not concern myself with it any longer.

In western Europe, then, new races with new ideals were forming the nations that to-day are England, Germany, France, Spain, Italy, and Austria.  It is interesting to note what some of these barbarians thought about women and what place they assigned them.

[Sidenote:  Julius Caesar’s account.]